Are Instagram Influencers Hypothetically Eating Print Magazines Alive?
Earlier this month it was reported that Cosmopolitan has seen the biggest circulation drop among women’s print magazine this year, falling by 32% YoY to 206,510 copies in the first six months of 2019 (Press Gazette, 2019). An explanation for the decline in sales could be the resulting factors of the ‘influencer marketing revolution’ driven by networking platforms, such as Instagram (Phenomenon and Arroyo, 2019). Distribution has been transformed due to the internet and consequently has rocked the publishing industry to its core, this evidence is shown particularly in the consumer magazine market.
This month it was revealed that 1 billion people use Instagram every month and in 2018 there was 3.7 million brand sponsored influencer posts on the social platform (Statista, 2019). Statistics are suggesting we’re becoming more motivated by what we see online and this is being proven with the power of Instagram. Magazines categorised as celebrity, gossip and beauty are suffering a real knock to sales since the revolution of influencers supported through Instagram. To prove this in action, Victoria Jowett is the digital beauty director of Cosmopolitan and her Instagram profile has a following of 4,210 which is somewhat underwhelming compared to Huda Kattan (see Appendix A) who has built an empire through the powerful marketing tool. Kattan is the top beauty influencer and through her success from social media she has launched a make up line, which Forbes valued at over $1billon (BBC News, 2019). Clarifying the extent of popularity that can be created using Instagram as a marketing tool, suggesting women magazines featuring fashion, beauty and health have been taken over by social media platforms and influencers.
Not all is doom and gloom for the future of magazines as a noticeable trend appears in the overall market sector displaying a number of titles experiencing a rise in sales. The ABC chart (Appendix A) shows Prospect magazine print sales have experienced a constant rise since its first publication in 1995 and in June 2019 it hit its peak circulation of 44,871(Abc.org.uk, 2019). For the future of print magazines, these figures are promising and can be explained by the events of Brexit and Trump’s election. Although the current unsettled nature of society may be driving readers to want a deeper understanding of factual news, it also portrays the concept that the middle market magazines content is struggling because their features are no longer relevant with the rise of networking influencers and social media platforms. Of Instagram’s total audience, 200 million users follow at least one fashion account, this is effecting magazines such as Cosmopolitan whose ethos is based on fashion, beauty and celebrity news because due to digital marketing news can be delivered in an instance, convenient and free.
As we can see, social media platforms and influencers has changed the face of consumer magazines as we once knew it. Cosmopolitan need to consider a revamp of their current business model due to the shift in online users, publishers having a broader view on their readership and consider their audience more intellectual for news on current affairs. To wrap this article up and assessing different magazine categories, it suggests in terms of traditional magazines the content is dead not print itself.
Appendices
Bibliography
BBC News. (2019). Huda Kattan: The millionaire beauty boss. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46524504 [Accessed 19 Nov. 2019].
bc.org.uk. (2019). Prospect — Data — ABC | Audit Bureau of Circulations. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.org.uk/product/8153 [Accessed 21 Nov. 2019].
Instagram. (2019). Instagram. [online] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2019].
IZEA. (2019). The Top Beauty and Makeup Artist Influencers of 2019. [online] Available at: https://izea.com/2019/02/01/makeup-artist/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2019].
Statista. (2019). Instagram: active users 2018 | Statista. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/253577/number-of-monthly-active-instagram-users/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2019].
Phenomenon, D. and Arroyo, L. (2019). Digital Revolution and Cultural Trends: the Influencer Phenomenon | CCCB LAB. [online] CCCB LAB. Available at: http://lab.cccb.org/en/digital-revolution-and-cultural-trends-the-influencer-phenomenon/ [Accessed 21 Nov. 2019].
Press Gazette. (2019). Women’s mags ABCs: Cosmopolitan sees biggest circulation fall + full figures. [online] Available at: https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/womens-mags-abcs-cosmopolitan-sees-biggest-circulation-fall-full-figures/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2019].
Wilberg, A. (2019). How Social Media and its Influencers are Driving Fashion. [online] Digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk. Available at: https://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/social-media-marketing/how-social-media-and-its-influencers-are-driving-fashion/4871 [Accessed 24 Nov. 2019].
